Knowledge translation literacy — Policy gaps — Many researchers do not have the skills to identify gaps in existing policies and how to reframe those gaps as viable research questions.
Literature review and experience.
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Knowledge translation literacy — Establishing relevant research questions — Researchers tend to begin by observing a broad or abstract problem and then narrowing down to a very specific question that can be answered with confidence following a scientific method. In our experience, practitioners may take the inverse approach. They encounter a very specific or practical problem, and, in the course of framing research questions, their inquiry broadens and they see a whole family of interconnected issues that impinge on the question that also need to be addressed. In both cases, the process of defining the problem and the question are learning exercises. But the processes seem to move in opposite directions, and it can be challenging to execute a delimited project that makes sense and is meaningful to everyone. Involving stakeholders can help to isolate and hone the research question. They can be helpful in identifying policy nuances, complexities, contradictions, and systemic links that needed to be taken into account for the study to be comprehensive.
Literature review and experience.
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One form of stakeholder (knowledge user)–researcher partnership is intermittent partner. In this case, the stakeholder uses information about the nature or attributes of the each specific research topic to assess the relevance of their participation.
Literature review and single case study.
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To overcome researchers’ difficulty in identifying gaps in existing policy to get policy-aware brokers to coach researchers in policy issues and related research opportunities.
Literature review and experience.
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Knowledge brokers can act as bridging agents, helping researchers to understand stakeholders and their environment and helping stakeholders to understand researchers and the research project — and the mutual benefits associated with their involvement. Knowledge brokering is demanding and often difficult work. Knowledge brokers can benefit from the availability of a formal support infrastructure, adequate resourcing, and allocations of time that enable them to build and sustain an understanding of researcher and stakeholders operations. Knowledge brokers may also be good candidates for co-authorship of scholarly papers and co-presenters at workshops or conferences.
Lessons learned from close researcher-stakeholder partnerships.
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Knowledge brokers — no single job description can comprehensively define the requisite qualifications and/or roles. They are primarily set by the attributes of the target audience and their environment.
Description of knowledge broker roles.
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Research funders should consider funding large-scale systematic push efforts. Using this approach, there could be a greater chance that the research being pushed by researchers could be matched with the needs of public policymakers (or trigger the opening of policy windows in the policy making process).
Literature review and direct experience.
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To succeed in new product development, a business must budget adequate resources of people and money. Resources should be committed by senior management, and must be aligned with the business's new product objectives and process. People must have a realistic amount of time for each project, and be free from conflicting priorities.
Survey of 161 business units.
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Knowledge translation, in the form of a systematic review (a synthesis of existing research that typically address a broad array of effectiveness, cost, relational, attributable, and causal questions that a public policy maker — knowledge user — is likely to ask about a particular issue), can create an effective bridge between researchers and policy makers.
Source: Lavis (2004, 2005, 2006). In: Lavis, John (2006)

Systematic reviews (syntheses of existing research that typically address a broad array of effectiveness, cost, relational, attributable, and causal questions that a public policy maker is likely to ask about a particular issue) can be useful to policy makers (knowledge users). They often provide a multi-study, transparent perspective for a given subject, saving policy makers considerable research time and synthesis effort.
Source: Lavis (2005). In: Lavis, John (2006)

Knowledge brokering — is a popular emerging knowledge translation and exchange strategy that promotes interaction between researchers and end users, as well as develops capacity for evidence-informed decision making.
Source: Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (2003); Hartwich (2000); Hon (2004); Verona (2006); Zook (2004); Burnett (2002); Hargadon (1998a); Hargadon (1998b). In: Dobbins, M., Robeson, P., Ciliska, D., Hanna, S., Cameron, R., O'Mara, L., DeCorby, K. & Mercer, S. (2009)

Knowledge brokers — the personality characteristics of a knowledge broker can affect the impact of their actions — positively and negatively. Care must be taken to match knowledge broker characteristics with the knowledge brokering environment.
Source: Clark (2005); van Kammen (2006); Bowen (2005). In: Dobbins, M., Robeson, P., Ciliska, D., Hanna, S., Cameron, R., O'Mara, L., DeCorby, K. & Mercer, S. (2009)

Knowledge brokers — with an acute awareness of those stakeholders that generate evidence and those stakeholders that could benefit from access to that evidence, brokers can be instrumental in building capacity to locate, appraise, and translate evidence into the local context.
Source: Hartwich (2000); Lavis (2003); Pyper (2002). In: Dobbins, M., Robeson, P., Ciliska, D., Hanna, S., Cameron, R., O'Mara, L., DeCorby, K. & Mercer, S. (2009)

Knowledge brokers — with an acute awareness of those stakeholders that generate evidence and those stakeholders that could benefit from access to that evidence, brokers can be instrumental in facilitating learning.
Source: Hartwich (2000); World Health Organization (2004); Hinloopen (2004); Loew (2004). In: Dobbins, M., Robeson, P., Ciliska, D., Hanna, S., Cameron, R., O'Mara, L., DeCorby, K. & Mercer, S. (2009)

Knowledge brokers — with an acute awareness of those stakeholders that generate evidence and those stakeholders that could benefit from access to that evidence, brokers can be instrumental in increasing the incidence of research-finding being interpreted, increasing their relevance for action.
Source: Thompson (2006). In: Dobbins, M., Robeson, P., Ciliska, D., Hanna, S., Cameron, R., O'Mara, L., DeCorby, K. & Mercer, S. (2009)